Balance of Maat
Main_Page > Vampire: The Requiem > Bloodlines > the Anubi > Zealot's Version > Balance of Maat In their century, the Judges developed a kind of ritual magic based on the rituals of the Egyptian embalmers they worked with, and on the duties of Anubi. Anubi is the Keeper of dead bodies, as well as the tombs and necropolis; he also weighs the heart of ba, he Judges the Soul; so, some rituals affect the world of the living, other affect the world of the dead. Balance of Maat is ruled by the Feather of Maat, the Truth, so the Humanity of who evokes the effects must be 6 or higher, otherwise he looses the faculty to invoke Anubi during the ritual. Cost: All rituals requires the expenditure of Vitae or Willpower points, because the soul, ba, or the vital force, ka, are involved during the invocation. Also a material component is used up in the casting, as offer to Anubi. Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Balance of Maat Action: Extended. The number of successes needed to complete a ritual is equal to its level. Each roll represent the time necessary to the casting, depends which ritual is evoked. Damage taken while casting confers a – 1 penalty, further the normal penalty of damages. Roll Result ''' '''Dramatic Failure: The ritual fails spectacularly, inflicting some aspect of itself as a detrimental effect upon the caster. Failure: The ritual fails, but without detriment to the caster. Material Components and Vitae/Willpower are consumed as normal but without effect. Success: The ritual takes place as desired. Exceptional Success: The ritual goes remarkably well. Extra success usually result in extended duration. Unless specified otherwise, rituals last until the end of the scene or sunrise, which ever come first. Applied Modifiers Modifier Situation + 2 The officiating is a devout follower of Anubi + 1 The officiating invokes the rituals in a temple ― devoted to Anubi or with the aid of the Book of Anubi. – 1 to – 3 The subject is in hurry o is absent-mind; he denies the authority of Anubi or prays to another god than it (this includes all monotheistic gods). Inscribe the Book of Anubi (Level One Balance of Maat Ritual) This is the first and most important ritual that the Judges gain. All other rituals demand the use of a specially consecrated scroll, The Book of Going Forth by Day. A sorcerer hand-copies the book in hieroglyphic script, on a scroll of authentic papyrus, using vampiric vitae for ink. This generally takes a year. The text increases by 1 lector-priest’s chance of success at other rituals. Offering: A papyrus and a point of Vitae. Living the World of The Dead (Level One Balance of Maat Ritual) ''' This power allows the sorcerer to see and interact with the World of the Dead. He can see and speak with ghosts usually he cannot see, he recognizes the haunted places and the objects kind the ghosts, the anchor to the world of the living. '''Offering: Two drops of Vitae in the eyes. Opening the Mouth (Level Two Balance of Maat Ritual) ''' This magic ritual imitates the rite performed before burial. The funerary rite enabled the deceased to breath and speak in the Underworld. This ritual enables a dead person to speak through his own cadaver. Opening the Mouth works only if the body retains an intact head and tongue. The magician touches the cadaver’s mouth with his ceremonial axe while commanding it to speak. The deceased can hear and speak for one minute for success, but take no other action. The ritual does not compel the deceased to tell about the Afterlife. '''Offering: A ceremonial axe and a Willpower point. Suffocation of the tomb (Level Two Balance of Maat Ritual) This power casts the darkness, the deafness, the muteness of Death into a victim’s eyes, ears and mouth, rendering him blind, deaf and dumb. The magician can affects only vampires with his power. The power is penalized by the subject's Resolve. Offering: A point of Vitae and some sepulchral dust. Hand of Anubi (Level Three Balance of Maat Ritual) The Anubi gain the power to influence corporeal supernatural entities: vampires, werewolves. The magician calls upon Anubi, the mediator between worlds, also he needs a image of the subject and must make an extraordinary effort, however, to overpower the innate magic of the victim’s being. For every success rolled, the magician inflicts one level of lethal damage to a supernatural target. The damage can be inflict only one time for every ritual's invocation. Offering: One point of Vitae and one Willpower point and a image of the subject. Rest of the Soul (Level Three Balance of Maat Ritual) In front of a ghost the Anubi can act in two different ways. If is an hostile ghost, he can banish it from the world, it immediately goes into the jaws of Ammut; instead, if it is good but chained to the world of the living without ways to escape, the magician can sends the soul to Osiris where it becomes an akh. The power is penalized by the ghost's Resistance. Offering: A Willpower point and a drop of pure water. Animate Mummy (Level Four Balance of Maat Ritual) Animate a mummy requires a mummified corpse, after it must be placed in a pool full of blood of the officiating; when the mummy has absorbed all the blood the magician conducts an hour-long invocation to Anubi to allow to a ka to take place in the mummy. Cause of the request of a ka, to Anubi, the sorcerer must offer more vitae if he is on the way down of Humanity. Mummies are more durable than zombies: they can endure for thousands of year as long as they remain in subterranean crypts. The mummy’s Traits are defined before: they start with one free dot in each Physical and Mental Trait. They can also have two dots each in Intelligence, Wits and Abilities. For every three dots in Attributes or Abilities the mummy receives, the magician expends one Willpower point. The mummy cannot have any Ability that its creator does not, or at higher rating. They looks like slowly corpses wrapped in bends. Offering: Points of Vitae equal 10 – score of Humanity. Plus one or more Willpower points to make stronger the mummy. Warding Cippus (Level Four Balance of Maat Ritual) The ancient Egyptians prized steles carved with the figure of the infant Horus trampling on crocodile and strangling serpents or crushing scorpions. Such statue -called cippi- served as amulets to repel these harmful creatures and, more generally, all the malign forces of the world. The enchanted stele protects against ghost, they cannot pass trough the mystical force that protects the heaven of the Anubi. The ward lasts for one night each success rolled. Offering: A stele and a point of Vitae. Weigh the Heart (Level Five Balance of Maat Ritual) The magician spends one Willpower point and can remove the heart from the chest of a vampire. The removal is difficult if the vampire is reluctant, difficulty is comparable to staking trough the heart. This does not destroy the vampire. Then put the heart on a scale: if the Humanity is 6 or higher the magician must put the heart in the breast instead, if the score of Humanity is 5 or less the vampire is judged guilty. The removal of the heart is a contested action of Presence + Occult + Balance of Maat versus Stamina + Bood Potency of the subject. Offering: One Willpower point and a Balance. Judgment of the Soul (Level Five Balance of Maat Ritual) After the vampire is judged guilty, the Anubi can invoke Ammut, the demoness of punishment. She was known as the 'Eater of Hearts', 'The Devourer' and 'Great of Death'. She was a netherworld dweller, with the head of a crocodile, the body of a leopard and the backside of a hippopotamus, who waited by the scales of judgment to consume the hearts of those who did evil during their lives. The magician must spend a Willpower point for each point of Humanity possessed by the vampire who his heart was weighted; at the end of the ritual Ammut is evoked and the heart is devoured by her, so the vampire meets his Final Death. The power is penalized by subject's Blood Potency. Offering: One Willpower point for each point of Humanity possessed by the guilty vampire.